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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Here are some images of Mir's 1/35 scale Turtle from the American revolutionary war.
Upon opening this kit I was quite surprised and a little disappointed as to how small the kit was.
That and the small number of parts, so what to do.
First I completely scratched out a new top made totally out of brass. Then I added a barrel to replace the simple box that came with the kit. I then added the chain and rings.
The display base was made from wooden ship spare parts I had.
It's a very small model but pretty.

The American inventor David Bushnell conceived of the idea of a submersible for use in lifting the British naval blockade during the American War of Independence. Bushnell may have begun studying underwater explosions while at Yale College. By early 1775, he had created a reliable method for detonating underwater explosives, a clockwork connected to a musket firing mechanism, probably a flintlock, adapted for the purpose.After the Battles of Lexington and Concord
in April 1775, Bushnell began work near Old Saybrook on a small,
individually-manned submersible designed to attach an explosive charge
to the hull of an enemy ship, which, he wrote Benjamin Franklin, would
be, “Constructed with Great Simplicity and upon Principles of Natural
Philosophy.”Little is known about the origin, inspiration, and influences for
Bushnell’s invention. It seems clear Bushnell knew of the work of the
Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel.According to Dr. Benjamin Gale, a doctor who taught at Yale, the many
brass and mechanical (moving) parts of the submarine were built by the New Haven clock-maker, engraver, silversmith, brass manufacturer and inventor Isaac Doolittle, whose shop was just a half block from Yale. Though Bushnell is given the overall design credit for the Turtle by Gale and others, Doolittle was well known as an "ingenious mechanic" (i.e. an engineer), engraver, and metalworker.
He had both designed and manufactured complicated brass-wheel
hall-clocks, a mahogany printing-press in 1769 (the first made in
America, after Doolittle successfully duplicated the iron screw),
brass compasses, and surveying instruments. He also founded and owned a
brass foundry where he cast bells. At the start of the American
Revolution, the wealthy and patriotic Doolittle built a gunpowder mill
with two partners in New Haven to support the war, and was sent by the
Connecticut government to prospect for lead.Though the design of the Turtle was necessarily shrouded in secrecy,
based on his mechanical engineering expertise and previous experience
in design and manufacturing, it seems Doolittle designed and crafted
(and probably funded) the brass and the moving parts of the Turtle, including the propulsion system, the navigation instruments, the brass foot operated water-ballast and forcing pumps, the depth gauge and compass, the brass crown hatch, the clockwork detonator for the mine, and the hand operated propeller crank and foot-driven treadle with flywheel.
According to a letter from Benjamin Gale to Benjamin Franklin,
Doolittle also designed the mine attachment mechanism, "those Parts
which Conveys the Powder, and secures the same to the Bottom of the
Ship". The most historically important innovation in the Turtle
was the propeller, as it was the first known use of one in a
watercraft: it was described as an "oar for rowing forward or backward",
with "no precedent" design. As it was probably brass, it was thus likely forged if not designed by Doolittle. Doolittle also likely provided the scarce commodities of gunpowder and lead ballast as well. The wealthy Doolittle, nearly 20 years older than the Yale student Bushnell, was a founder and long time Warden of Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green,, and was in charge of New Haven's port inspection and beacon-alarm systems – suggesting that Doolittle provided much of the political and financial leadership in building the Turtle as well as its brass and moving parts.In making the hull, Bushnell enlisted the services of several skilled
artisans, including his brother the farmer Ezra Bushnell and ship's
carpenter Phineas Pratt, both, like David Bushnell, from Saybrook.. The hull was “constructed of oak, somewhat like a barrel and bound by heavy wrought-iron hoops.”
The shape of the hull, Gale informed Silas Deane, “has the nearest
resemblance to the two upper shells of a Tortoise joined together.”

This 19th-century diagram shows the side views of Turtle. It
incorrectly depicts the propeller as a screw blade; as seen in the
replica photographed above and reported by Sergeant Lee, it was a paddle
propeller blade.

Named for its shape, Turtle resembled a large clam as much as a turtle;
it was about 10 feet (3.0 m) long (according to the original
specifications), 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, and about 3 feet (0.9 m) wide, and
consisted of two wooden shells covered with tar and reinforced with steel bands. It dived by allowing water into a bilge
tank at the bottom of the vessel and ascended by pushing water out
through a hand pump. It was propelled vertically and horizontally by
hand-cranked propellers. It also had 200 pounds (91 kg) of lead aboard,
which could be released in a moment to increase buoyancy. Manned and
operated by one person, the vessel contained enough air for about thirty
minutes and had a speed in calm water of about 3 mph (2.6 kn;
4.8 km/h).

A diagram showing the front and rear of Turtle

Six small pieces of thick glass in the top of the submarine provided natural light. The internal instruments had small pieces of bioluminescentfoxfire
affixed to the needles to indicate their position in the dark. During
trials in November 1775, Bushnell discovered that this illumination
failed when the temperature dropped too low. Although repeated requests
were made to Benjamin Franklin for possible alternatives, none was forthcoming, and Turtle was sidelined for the winter.Bushnell's basic design included some elements present in earlier
experimental submersibles. The method of raising and lowering the vessel
was similar to that developed by Nathaniel Simons in 1729, and the
gaskets used to make watertight connections around the connections
between the internal and external controls also may have come from
Simons, who constructed a submersible based on a 17th-century Italian
design by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Here are some images of Wingnut Wings 1/32 scale Airco DH.9A Ninak light bomber.
This aircraft served with 99 Sqn October 1918.

From Wikipedia"The Airco DH.9A was a British single-engined light bomber designed and first used shortly before the end of the First World War. It was a development of the unsuccessful Airco DH.9 bomber, featuring a strengthened structure and, crucially, replacing the under-powered and unreliable inline 6-cylinder Siddeley Puma engine of the DH.9 with the American V-12 Liberty engine.Colloquially known as the "Ninak" (from the phonetic alphabet treatment of designation "nine-A"), it served on in large numbers for the Royal Air Force
following the end of the war, both at home and overseas, where it was
used for colonial policing in the Middle East, finally being retired in
1931. Over 2,400 examples of an unlicensed version, the Polikarpov R-1,
were built in the Soviet Union, the type serving as the standard Soviet
light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft through the 1920s.

The DH.9A was planned as an improved version of the existing Airco DH.9.
The DH.9 was a disappointment owing to its under-performing and
unreliable engines, and the DH.9A was to use a more powerful engine to
resolve this. As the Rolls-Royce Eagle engine used in the successful DH.4 was unavailable in sufficient quantities, the new 400 hp (298 kW) American Liberty engine was chosen instead.As Airco was busy developing the Airco DH.10 twin-engined bomber, detailed design was carried out by Westland Aircraft. The DH.9 was fitted with new, longer-span wings and a strengthened fuselage structure.The first prototype flew in March 1918, powered by a Rolls-Royce Eagle as no Liberty engines were yet available. The prototype proved successful, with the first Liberty-engined DH.9A flying on 19 April 1918, and deliveries to the Royal Air Force starting in June.
By the end of the war, a total of 2,250 DH.9As had been ordered, with
885 being built by the end of the year. As it was decided that the DH.9A
would be a standard type in the postwar RAF, the majority of
outstanding orders were fulfilled, with 1,730 being built under the
wartime contracts before production ceased in 1919.While the existing aircraft were subject to a programme of
refurbishment, a number of small contracts were placed for new
production of DH.9As in 1925–26. These contracts resulted in a further
268 DH.9As being built. The new production and refurbished aircraft
included batches of dual control trainers, as well as six aircraft powered by 465 hp Napier Lion engines, which were capable of a maximum speed of 144 mph.The Soviet Union built large numbers of an unlicensed copy of the DH.9A, the R-1. After the production of 20 DH.4 copies, followed by about 200 copies of the DH.9 powered by the Mercedes D.IV engine (also designated R-1) and a further 130 powered by the Siddeley Puma
(designated R-2), a copy of the DH.9A powered by the M-5 engine, a
Soviet copy of the DH.9A's Liberty, entered production in 1924.

US version and pressurised flights

The
United States also planned to adopt the DH.9A as a replacement for the
DH.4. Development work on the Americanization of the aircraft commenced
at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio. Modifications included a new fuel system with increased fuel capacity, revised wings and tail surfaces, and replacement of the Vickers machine gun on the port side of the British built aircraft with a Browning machine gun on the starboard side. Plans called for Curtiss to build 4,000 modified aircraft, designated USD-9A. This order was cancelled with the end of the war and only nine were built by McCook Field and Dayton-Wright. One McCook aircraft was additionally modified with an enclosed, pressurised cockpit.
In 1921, test pilot Lt. Harold R. Harris made the world's first
high-altitude flight in a pressurised aircraft in the USD-9A at McCook
Field in Dayton, Ohio.

First World War

The DH.9A entered service in July 1918 with No. 110 Squadron RAF, moving to France on 31 August 1918 to serve with the RAF's Independent Air Force on strategic bombing missions. Its first mission was against a German airfield on 14 September 1918. A further three squadrons commenced operations over the Western Front before the Armistice, with 99 Squadron (also serving with the Independent Air Force) replacing DH.9s, while 18 Squadron and 216 Squadron replaced DH.4s.
Despite the superior performance of the DH.9A over the DH.9, the DH.9A
squadrons suffered high losses during their long range bombing missions
over Germany. Other squadrons flew coastal patrols from Great Yarmouth before the end of the year.The United States Marine CorpsNorthern Bombing Group received at least 53 DH-9As, and commenced operations in September 1918.

Interwar RAF service

While
the squadrons in service at the end of the First World War quickly
disbanded or re-equipped in the postwar dis-armament, the DH.9A
continued in service as the RAF's standard light bomber, with 24
squadrons being equipped between 1920 and 1931, both at home and abroad.The first post war operations were in southern Russia in 1919, in support of the "White Army" against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. In September 1919, the RAF personnel were ordered to return home, leaving their aircraft behind. A squadron of DH.9As was deployed to Turkey in response to the Chanak Crisis in 1922, but did not engage in combat.The DH.9A was one of the key weapons used by Britain to manage the
territories that were in its control following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the Great War. Five squadrons of DH.9As served in the Middle East,
occasionally carrying out bombing raids against rebellious tribesmen
and villages. An additional radiator was fitted under the fuselage to
cope with the high temperatures, while additional water containers and
spares (including spare wheels lashed to the fuselage) were carried in
case the aircraft were forced down in the desert, the DH.9A's struggling
under ever heavier loads. Despite this the aircraft served
successfully, with the Liberty engine being picked out for particular
praise for its reliability ("as good as any Rolls Royce") in such harsh
conditions. Some DH.9A aircraft were also transported to India to supplement the British Indian Army.At home, the DH.9A continued on in regular RAF service until 1930, also forming the initial equipment of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF).

On September 24, 1949, the XT-28 (company designation NA-159) was flown for the first time, designed to replace the T-6 Texan. The T-28A arrived at the Air Proving Ground, Eglin Air Force Base,
Florida, in mid-June 1950, for suitability tests as an advanced trainer
by the 3200th Fighter Test Squadron, with consideration given to its
transition, instrument, and gunnery capabilities. Found satisfactory, a contract was issued and between 1950 and 1957, a total of 1,948 were built.Following the T-28's withdrawal from U.S. military service, a number were remanufactured by Hamilton Aircraft into two versions called the Nomair. The first refurbished machines, designated T-28R-1 were similar to the standard T-28s they were adapted from, and were supplied to the Brazilian Navy. Later, a more ambitious conversion was undertaken as the T-28R-2,
which transformed the two-seat tandem aircraft into a five-seat cabin
monoplane for general aviation use. Other civil conversions of
ex-military T-28As were undertaken by PacAero as the Nomad Mark I and Nomad Mark II

After becoming adopted as a primary trainer by the USAF, the United
States Navy and Marine Corps adopted it as well. Although the Air Force
phased out the aircraft from primary pilot training by the early 1960s,
continuing use only for limited training of special operations aircrews
and for primary training of select foreign military personnel, the
aircraft continued to be used as a primary trainer by the Navy (and by
default, the Marine Corps and Coast Guard) well into the early 1980s.
The largest single concentration of this aircraft was employed by the U.S. Navy at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Florida,
in the training of student naval aviators. The T-28's service career in
the U.S. military ended with the completion of the phase-in of the T-34C turboprop trainer. The last U.S. Navy training squadron to fly the T-28 was VT-27 “Boomers”, based at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, flying the last T-28 training flight in early 1984. The last T-28 in the Training Command, BuNo 137796, departed for Naval District Washington on 14 March 1984 to be displayed permanently at Naval Support Facility Anacostia, D.C.[

In 1963, a Royal Lao Air Force T-28 piloted by Lieutenant Chert Saibory, a Thai national, defected to North Vietnam.
Saibory was immediately imprisoned and his aircraft was impounded.
Within six months the T-28 was refurbished and commissioned into the
North Vietnamese Air Force as its first fighter aircraft.T-28s were supplied to the Republic of Vietnam Air Force in support of ARVN ground operations, seeing extensive service during the Vietnam War in VNAF hands, as well as the Secret War in Laos.
A T-28 Trojan was the first US fixed wing attack aircraft
(non-transport type) lost in South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War.
Capt. Robert L. Simpson, USAF, Detachment 2A, 1st Air Commando Group,
and Lt. Hoa, SVNAF, were shot down by ground fire on August 28, 1962
while flying close air support. Neither crewman survived. The USAF lost
23 T-28s to all causes during the war, with the last two losses
occurring in 1968.T-28s were used by the CIA in the former Belgian Congo during the 1960s.France's Armée de l'Air used locally re-manufactured Trojans for close support missions in Algeria.Nicaragua replaced its fleet of 30+ ex Sweden P-51s with T-28s in the early 1960s.[citation needed]The Philippines utilized T-28s (colloquially known as "Tora-toras") during the 1989 Philippine coup attempt. The aircraft were often deployed as dive bombers by rebel forces.[citation needed]

AeroVironment modified and armored a T-28A to fly weather research for South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, funded by the National Science Foundation, and operated in this capacity from 1969 to 2005.[9][10]
SDSM&T is currently planning to replace it with another modified,
but more modern, former military aircraft, specifically a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II.[11]Many retired T-28s were subsequently sold to private civil operators,
and due to their reasonable operating costs are often found flying or
displayed as warbirds today.On Saturday, September 17, 2011 at about 14:40 EDT, a civilian-owned Trojan belonging to the T-28 Warbird Aerobatic Formation Demonstration Team, known as the Trojan Horsemen, was lost as they were performing during an air show hosted by the 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard at Shepherd Field in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Pilot Jack "Flash" Mangan, a businessman who had previously risen to the rank of Major in the USAF and had been awarded three Meritorious Service Medals
as well as the Fighter Pilot of the Year Award in 1984, was killed on
impact. The Trojan Horsemen team stood down, but temporarily resumed
flying on November 11, 2011.On Sunday, July 17, 2016 at approximately 14:00 MDT,
a privately owned T-28B Trojan with Canadian registration C-GKKD
performed what appeared to be a loop during an aerobatic routine at the
2016 CFB Cold Lake
Air Show and plummeted nose-first into the ground. The aircraft, which
had been manufactured in 1955 and was originally assigned to US Navy
Squadron VT-27 “Boomers” with BuNo 138364, had retained its historic 1970s era US Navy white-and-orange training livery with identification number 706 and VT-27 on the fuselage and a capitalized letter D on the vertical stabilizer, and was destroyed on impact. Pilot Bruce Evans, an accomplished Warbird flier with over 4,100 hours of flight experience and president of Firefly Aviation, was killed instantly.

T-28C

U.S. Navy version, a T-28B with shortened propeller blades and tailhook for carrier-landing training; 266 built.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

From Wikipedia"H. L. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic), although Hunley
was not completely submerged and, following her successful attack, was
lost along with her crew before she could return to base. The
Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina.Hunley, nearly 40 feet (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on August 12, 1863, to Charleston. Hunley
(then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the
"porpoise") sank on August 29, 1863, during a test run, killing five
members of her crew. She sank again on October 15, 1863, killing all
eight of her second crew, including Horace Hunley himself, who was
aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate
military. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service.On February 17, 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-displacement tonUnited States Navyscrewsloop-of-warUSS Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbor. The Hunley did not survive the attack and also sank, taking with her all eight members of her third crew, and was lost.Finally located in 1995, Hunley was raised in 2000 and is on display in North Charleston, South Carolina, at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River. Examination, in 2012, of recovered Hunley artifacts suggests that the submarine was as close as 20 feet (6 meters) to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, which caused the submarine's own loss.

Construction of the Hunley began soon after the loss of the American Diver. At this stage, the Hunley was variously referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise". Legend held that the Hunley was made from a cast-off steam boiler — perhaps because a cutaway drawing by William Alexander, who had seen her, showed a short and stubby machine. In fact, the Hunley
was designed and built for her role, and the sleek, modern-looking
craft shown in R.G. Skerrett's 1902 drawing is an accurate
representation. The Hunley was designed for a crew of eight,
seven to turn the hand-cranked propeller and one to steer and direct the
boat. Each end was equipped with ballast tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps.
Extra ballast was added through the use of iron weights bolted to the
underside of the hull. In the event the submarine needed additional
buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by
unscrewing the heads of the bolts from inside the vessel.The Hunley was equipped with two watertight hatches, one forward and one aft, atop two short conning towers equipped with small portholes and slender, triangular cutwaters. The hatches, bigger than original estimates, measure about 16.5 inches wide and nearly 21 long (42 by 53 centimeters), making entrance to and egress from the hull difficult. The height of the ship's hull was 4 feet 3 inches (1.30 m).By July 1863, the Hunley was ready for a demonstration. Supervised by Confederate AdmiralFranklin Buchanan, the Hunley successfully attacked a coal flatboat in Mobile Bay. Following this, the submarine was shipped by rail to Charleston, South Carolina, arriving on August 12, 1863.However, the Confederate military seized the submarine from her
private builders and owners shortly after arriving, turning her over to
the Confederate Army. The Hunley would operate as a Confederate
Army vessel from then on, although Horace Hunley and his partners would
remain involved in her further testing and operation. While sometimes
referred to as the CSS Hunley, she was never officially commissioned into service.Confederate Navy Lieutenant John A. Payne of CSS Chicora volunteered to be Hunley's captain, and seven men from Chicora and CSS Palmetto State volunteered to operate her. On August 29, 1863, The Hunley's
new crew was preparing to make a test dive, when Lieutenant Payne
accidentally stepped on the lever controlling the sub's diving planes as
she was running on the surface. This caused the Hunley to dive with her hatches still open. Payne and two others escaped, but the other five crewmen drowned.The Confederate Army took control of the Hunley, with all orders coming directly from General P. G. T. Beauregard, with Lt. George E. Dixon placed in charge. On October 15, 1863, the Hunley
failed to surface after a mock attack, killing all eight crewmen. Among
these was Hunley himself, who had joined the crew for the exercise and
possibly had taken over command from Dixon for the attack maneuver. The
Confederate Navy once more salvaged the submarine and returned her to
service.

The Hunley was originally intended to attack by using a floating explosive charge with a contact fuse (a torpedo in 19th century terminology) which was towed at the end of a long rope. The Hunley
was to approach an enemy ship on the surface, then dive under her, and
surface again once beyond her. The torpedo would be drawn against the
targeted ship and explode. This plan was discarded as dangerous because
of the possibility of the tow line fouling the Hunley's screw or drifting into the submarine herself.Instead, a spar torpedo
-- a copper cylinder containing 135 pounds (61 kilograms) of black
powder -- was attached to a 22-foot (6.7 m)-long wooden spar, as seen in
illustrations made at this time. Mounted on the Hunley's bow,
the spar was to be used when the submarine was 6 feet (1.8 m) or more
below the surface. Previous spar torpedoes had been designed with a
barbed point: the spar torpedo would be jammed in the target's side by
ramming, and then detonated by a mechanical trigger attached to the
submarine by a line, so that as she backed away from her target, the
torpedo would set off. However, archaeologists working on Hunley
discovered evidence, including a spool of copper wire and components of a
battery, that it may actually have been electrically detonated. In the
configuration used in the attack on the Housatonic, it appears the Hunley's torpedo had no barbs, and was designed to explode on contact as it was pushed against an enemy vessel at close range.
After Horace Hunley's death, General Beauregard ordered that the
submarine should no longer be used to attack underwater. An iron pipe
was then attached to her bow, angled downwards so the explosive charge
would be delivered sufficiently under water to make it effective. This
was the same method developed for the earlier "David" surface attack craft used successfully against the USS New Ironsides. The Confederate Veteran
of 1902 printed a reminiscence authored by an engineer stationed at
Battery Marshall who, with another engineer, made adjustments to the
iron pipe mechanism before the Hunley left on her last fatal
mission on February 17, 1864. A drawing of the iron pipe spar,
confirming her "David" type configuration, was published in early
histories of submarine warfare.

The Hunley made her only attack against an enemy target on the night of February 17, 1864. The target was the USS Housatonic, a 1,240 long tons (1,260 t) wooden-hulled steam-powered sloop-of-war with 12 large cannons, which was stationed at the entrance to Charleston, about 5 miles (8.0 kilometres) offshore. Desperate to break the naval blockade of the city, Lieutenant George E. Dixon and a crew of seven volunteers successfully attacked the Housatonic, ramming the Hunley's only spar torpedo against the enemy's hull. The torpedo was detonated, sending the Housatonic to the bottom in five minutes, along with five of her crewmen.Years later, when the area around the wreck of the Housatonic was surveyed, the sunken Hunley
was found on the seaward side of the sloop, where no one had considered
looking before. This later indicated that the ocean current was going
out following the attack on the Housatonic, taking the Hunley with her to where she was eventually found and later recovered.

After the attack, the H.L. Hunley failed to return to her base. At one point there appeared to be evidence that Hunley
survived as long as one hour following the attack at about 8:45 p.m.
The day after the attack, the commander of "Battery Marshall" reported
that he had received "the signals" from the submarine indicating she was
returning to her base.
The report did not say what the signals were. A postwar correspondent
wrote that "two blue lights" were the prearranged signals, and a lookout on the Housatonic reported he saw a "blue light" on the water after his ship sank."Blue light" in 1864 referred to a pyrotechnic signal in long use by the U.S. Navy. It has been falsely represented in published works as a blue lantern; the lantern eventually found on the recovered H.L. Hunley had a clear, not a blue, lens. Pyrotechnic "blue light" could be seen easily over the four-mile distance between Battery Marshall and the site of the Hunley's attack on the Housatonic.After signaling, Dixon's plan would have been to take his submarine
underwater to make a return to Sullivan's Island. Although at one point
the finders of the Hunley suggested she was unintentionally rammed by USS Canandaigua when that warship was going to rescue the crew of Housatonic,
no such damage was found when she was raised from the bottom of the
harbor. Instead, all evidence and analysis eventually pointed to the
instantaneous death of the Hunley's entire crew at the moment of the spar torpedo's contact with the hull of the Housatonic
from the explosion's shock wave which destroyed their lungs and brain
tissue in milliseconds. In October 2008, scientists reported they had
found that the crew of Hunley had not set her pump to remove
water from the crew's compartment, and this might indicate she was not
being flooded. In January 2013, it was announced that conservator Paul
Mardikian had found evidence of a copper sleeve at the end of the Hunley's spar. This indicated the torpedo had been attached directly to the spar, meaning the submarine may have been less than 20 feet from Housatonic when the torpedo exploded. The short distance involved has led some researchers to theorize that Hunley's crew was killed by the resulting blast, though their conclusion has been disputed by US Navy and Naval History and Heritage Command researchers.